


In Which Tony is the Only Alpha He Knows

by Exultation_of_the_Gryphon



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha Tony Stark, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/anything uncommon, Alphas do not rule the world, Beta Clint Barton, Beta/Beta, Beta/Omega, Common Betas, Common Omegas, Everyone Stereotypes Alphas, Forceful Omegas, Implied Relationships, Multi, Nick Fury Knows All, Omega Bruce Banner, Omega Natasha Romanov, Omega Nick Fury, Omega Pepper Potts, Omega Steve Rogers, Omega/Omega, Rare Alphas, Sexually Confused Hulk Because Hulk Not Omega, Shipping, Tony Feels, Tony Ships Everyone, Tony has Self-Control
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-03 15:17:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10249886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exultation_of_the_Gryphon/pseuds/Exultation_of_the_Gryphon
Summary: In a world with almost no alphas, alphas are stereotyped fiercely.To be an alpha is to be a bully, to be romantic, to have larger than average portions of your body, to having little brain power, to be a leader, to be a lone wolf, to be charismatic, to being the bastard with a heart of gold, to be a hit with the ladies, to be the goal of all omegas.Tony Stark is an alpha in a world where misinformation abounds about his secondary gender and by preference he has kept it a secret all his life. He dates Beta women exclusively, has occasional one night stands with Beta men, avoids romantic attempts by Omegas such that he almost seems like an Omegaphobe except that one time he managed to date his Omega personal assistant turned CEO for several months.The Avengers are Omegas and Betas as far as the public knows. The Avengers are moving into Stark Tower. But Tony's annual Rut is coming up and it might blow Tony's mostly carefully planned life out of the water.





	1. Tony Ships Everyone and Likes Naming Ships

**In Which Tony Attends a Meeting During Which We Learn that this Story is Set in an Omegaverse**

(Or We Would Have Except We Saw the Tags First)

 

Tony Stark was sitting in a small grey room, at a grey table that was much too large for the room, with a number of people some of whom were wearing grey while others were wearing various colored outfits; all brought together in some briefing for a situation that Tony honestly wasn’t going to be involved in more than spherically. He had no idea why he was even here, with Fury leading the meeting, Tony was surprised that he’d even been notified that there was a meeting much less called to attend.

 He wondered idly how much it had to do with his and Pepper’s recent discovery of how Stark Industries owned most of SHIELD. Tony hadn’t even brought it up yet. Pepper insisted that he wait until there was an advantage to holding it over SHIELD’s collective head.

 And Tony was actually pretty agreeable when his favorite Omega was displaying her vicious streak.

 Well, naturally excluding his not-yet-science-bromega. Tony was quickly growing fond of Bruce Banner but it was taking a lot longer for Brucie to get the feels. Tony acknowledged that there was medical-trial backed up evidence of Out-of-Heat-Omega-Revulsion-Towards-Alphas (or OHORTA) but Tony was sure he’d be able to overcome that by working with Bruce on Science!

 It wasn’t like Bruce knew that Tony was Alpha, which would probably have distinctly put Bruce on edge around Tony. OHORTA was almost entirely subconscious. Tony, as an Alpha could sense Omegas (Tony-tested and true) and other Alphas (not-Tony-tested and therefore still theory) but unusual senses were the domain of Alphas and Omegas could not consciously detect Alphas through inborn senses.

 Omegas on the other hand have the corner on being a little stronger than most of humanity with the possibility of adrenaline driven superhuman acts. They also tended towards grouping with other Omegas, establishing an informal hierarchy that often worked well towards getting things done, and being ferocious fighters when their group was threatened.

Tony sighed very, very quietly so as not to interrupt the presentation. Alphas usually just got a bit insane when they reached puberty.  Tony was no exception.

Sure it started out pretty mildly – Tony had discovered sex and became very interested in his own sex life. However, this was followed by great interest in the sex life of everybody around him and matchmaking attempts.

He discovered rather quickly in college that he had no supernatural Alpha ability to find good matches. So mostly, he did his best to shut up about it and just play word games over it to determine the best name for a pairing. Honestly, it was pretty funny although sometimes it led to pretty awkward questions when he could not let something go.

Currently he was trying to determine what the pairing name for Steve x Romanoff would be. Stevie had been looking her way and blushing sometimes lately… Steve could probably be Cap, Spangled, All-American, or Shield and obviously Romanoff would be Russian, Black, Spider, or Widow. So, SpangledSpider? BlackShield? (Or would that be Romanoff and Fury? Umm, let’s not go there Tony. No Tony, don’t ask. Nooo…. I must ask!)

Tony focused his gaze on Fury and the Alphaeyes did their work. Fury, very slowly, cast his gaze over to Tony.

“Yes, Stark, do you have something to contribute?”

“No, but I need to know something.”

Fury now smelled like he was moments from praying for God to smite Tony. Anger thickened in the room and the steady rumbles that Tony’s alpha always picked up on from Fury darkened into reverberant growl. All that was actually visible though was a twitch in his visible eye and the way the small wrinkles around his mouth folded downwards.

“What, Stark?” Fury asked flatly, reluctant and invisibly apprehensive.

“Do you feel that BlackShield would more accurately describe your pairing ship name with Romanoff or with Steve? Since Steve and you both are shield related, and you are like grim dark all the time and…”

Fury interrupted. “Stark, shut the fuck up.”

Tony did and went back to pretending to listen.

SpiderShield? (But that was not exclusive enough – what if that meant Steve x Spiderman? What if SpangledSpider meant Steve x Spiderman? That might be adorable.) WidowCap? It might be the best one he got for that.

Oooh! What if Bruce and Steve got together! CapHulk? SpangledGreen? GreenSky? Stars and Banners? Ah, Spangled Banner! That one was pure gold.

I wonder if Loki ever made Barton get it on… FrostEye? (the Snowman), FrostHawk? Maybe something a little softer, just to poke fun at how ridiculous this is, Tones? What about Snowbird? D’aw, that sounds so adorable. Will call this pairing that forever and ever just because it will make Barton blow his top if he ever catches on to what I am talking about.

Tony inadvertently snickered aloud which got him a tableful of nasty looks. Fury looked like he might hurl and just gestured for Tony to get. Tony got.

 

 

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	2. Alpha This and Alpha That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, Tony contemplates the Realities of Alphas in this Omegaverse

_Shortly After Loki's Invasion of Earth But Before the Avengers Colonize the Stark Tower_

 

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In a twisted way, Howard Stark had been proud of his son presenting as an alpha.

 Tony had never understood what there was to be proud of in an Alpha. If he were in the Army, a construction worker, or even an athlete in the Olympics (although Alphas had been banned from competitive sport in general since the late 1920’s) Tony maybe could understand it.

 Physical work was something that being an Alpha would be useful in with the greater strength that came from that. If he was in a warzone, it was something that could be more than useful – an Alpha’s madness was almost supernaturally useful in predicting attacks.

 But Tony was meant to grow up to be an inventor and a businessman. Inventors could be reclusive to a degree and teachers when they were not. That was okay. Alphas didn’t have many problems when partially alone or in an instructive position of authority. Now, as the owner of a company? That was not a good Position for an Alpha to be in.

 The Myths of Alphas would suggest that Tony’s secondary gender would be adept leaders, forceful negotiators, and charismatic – especially with women.

 Lies.

 Alphas (or Tonys) were paranoid in the extreme, found it very hard to back down from a position, and, when women got to know him, they usually found him strange, abrupt, too forward, blunt, crude, and quite disliked him responding to things they didn’t verbalize.

 And therein lay much of the madness of the Alpha. Generally, Alphas picked up on things that were not entirely there – often in the form of auditory hallucinations and sometimes scents that most scientists believed existed almost entirely in the mind of the Alpha.

 It was not so clean cut as verbal words most of the time. In Tony’s case, he believed that he could pick up on people’s lust. His Beta doctor would usually tell him this was either entirely imaginary or perhaps some of it was pulled together from inaudible and even unconscious body language that his brain processed and presented to him as a sound. Either way, he was in no way to act on these sorts of things.

 Tony had just nodded when his doctor told him so. He half wished that he could get another doctor but as Tony generally passed for Beta himself, it would look pretty strange for him to see an Omega when he was neither a woman nor Omega and there was a Beta present to see him. That and his doctor was one of the few with any sort of background in Alphas.

 He knew full well he wasn’t to act on those sorts of signals and Tony was a very good Alpha – very self-controlled anyway - even in college he’d never even gone farther than kissing with an Omega. He’d kept well away from Heated Omegas and left if one tried to come after his teenaged self. No matter how sweet they smelled, how hopefully they seemed to croon, Tony had no desire to become a statistic of teenage fatherhood.

 But they had certainly smelled good. It wasn’t the actual physical smell of a person. It wasn’t the sweat or perfume, it wasn’t some pheromones beyond Beta perception that told him that the Heated individual was ready for breeding.

 It was yet another Alpha thing – something that made his crazy Alpha brain smell Heated Omegas or Women as sweet things – candy, desserts, sugary alcohols. Sugar cookies, devils food cake, Baked Alaska, chocolate liquor. Thousands of smells which the Heated individual had no idea they smelled like and could not pick which deodorants, perfumes, or colognes would complement them. Fortunately for Tony’s self control and deep desire not to become a teen parent, a lot of people picked scents which went very badly with their dessert smells of Heat. Alphas, or at least Tony, were led first by their nose when searching for sex partner and the smell combinations left him cold.

 Tony wondered now and then if maybe these other smells tricked his Alpha into thinking that the Heated individuals were already taken. Still, he’d yet to come across an Alpha so it would stay nothing more than a question and a guess.

After all, with a statistical population of perhaps 7,300 worldwide, alphas made up less than a one ten-thousandth of the global population. In the United States that meant that there were maybe 34 alphas in the entire country, including himself. Maybe around. That included baby alphas born yesterday and alphas so old they couldn’t even have sex without dying from heart failure or something.

That statistically existent population of seven thousand, three hundred people was such a small population that there were not many doctors who’d spend time studying people who would probably never darken the door of his or her office. 

Even doctors didn’t spend much time studying Alphas. Tony had sent JARVIS digging to find a doctor that had even spent a few hours of his Mastery on Alpha psychology and physiology. The doctor he found was a Beta, which meant that he didn’t even have the Omega instinct to draw from, but at least he didn’t unconsciously draw away from Tony when Tony had his checkups and things.

Tony was pretty sure though that his doctor was missing out on a lot of stuff though.

After all, he was quite sure he could perceive scents that his doctor assured him could not really be smelled. The scent he had identified as pride from his father and other emotions that as far as scientist were concerned did not emit in molecules to create scents. 

Fear and anger, yes. Even illness, which was not really an emotion. (Illness was very noticeable. And Tony instinctively sought to avoid the ill. This was also not a good trait in a successful businessman who really ought to be able to work with everyone.) 

Joy, contentedness, and other emotional states, other than as an absence of fear and anger, no chance. Science claimed that these emotional states produced no scents, and there was no way he should be able to perceive these emotions from people he had not even laid eyes on. 

Tony wasn’t sure whether general science was correct. He needed to be able to ask people what they were feeling and a society were normal people composed of nearly seventy percent was not one that understood the need to try to understand other people through scent. Tony at least thought he could pick up a lot of emotions. He just either wasn’t right all the time, or some people just reacted really strangely. He had no way to tell.

He had no other alphas to ask.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony shifted on the tall bar stool in his kitchen and turned away from the Omega house cleaner who was dusting in the other room, doing his best to ignore the lusty croons that appeared to be coming from the young male Omega’s direction. He knew full well that he preferred not to be near Tony if he could avoid it. For all that Tony’s lizard (or something) brain seemed to perceive receptiveness it was strictly a hallucination or some such. The housekeeper had already demonstrated the unconscious OHORTA tendencies of his gender.  

 And Tony was very aware that those crooning sorts of noise were strictly an illusion. Alphas might be on the stronger side of human abilities, with keener than average senses too, but it was topped off with a nice dose of madness.

 The background noise of needy croons that didn’t actually exist outside his own head spiked from near the doorway of the kitchen and Tony turned in his chair to see the housekeeper standing there with his mouth open, even as Tony realized that he had a mouth full of intact banana on which he had been performing fellatio. He turned away and pretended that he had not been. He finished his banana in two bites, disposed of the peel and fled to his room.

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 As he cleaned himself up he brooded over the physical male alpha traits and masturbated some more. Unlike the outstanding abilities of the female alpha, who could - like seahorses, impregnate an omega male or another woman with her own fertilized egg - the male alpha was relatively unremarkable.

 The male alpha had somewhat larger than average testicles, with which he would produce slightly more than the average amount of semen. Tony also had a rather large cock, which was not alpha standard, just common human deviation above the normal range.

 Alphas produced less semen than average per actual orgasm though, as the most remarkable thing about male alphas aside from their rut was that they only delivered the load of one testicle per orgasm. Perhaps it was an attempt to match multiple female orgasms? An attempt to hold something in reserve so the alpha male could immediately get to work on the next female or omega?

 There was no real telling.

 He sighed as he finally relaxed into his bed.

 The group of eclectic individuals SHIELD had rounded up was planning on moving into Stark Tower tomorrow. And Tony’s rut was coming up in about three weeks. He dragged a cool pillow over his face and groaned into it.

 Everybody except Barton was an Omega in the group, including Agent. (Barton was such a BAMF that he didn’t need the minor strength boost that being an Omega offered to keep up with SHIELD missions or the other Avengers.)

 Tony was pretty sure that most of the group members did not know that he was an Alpha. Natasha, sure, because she had worked directly with him under Pepper for a while SHIELD was investigating him.  Agent, because Agent knew all.

 But Steve and Bruce? They almost certainly had no idea. Barton might go either way.

 It wasn’t like you had to make it public or anything what your secondary gender was. Fortunately Alphas and Omegas had no particular smells outside their respective ruts and heats. Alpha females and Omega males just had a combination of male and female scents, like every other member of humanity that walked shoulder to shoulder with each other.

And heats simply smelled like female fertility – the two or three days after ovulation that were optimum for making sure the egg got fertilized. While people in heat got really horny, most people didn’t actually become unable to function. A lot of them would just work right through their heats, although most employers would offer a heat ‘weekend’ every month for employees if needed.

 STARK Enterprises did at least.

 Alpha males were unable to function normally while in rut. Fortunately rut was only once a year, although timing could be variable with food available all the time and thermostats easily adjusted.

 Still, ruts could be predicted and Tony was actually already in his cranky, snappy pre-rut phase. Unless one of the incoming Omegas went into heat he should be able to continue working for another twelve days or so, make some more donations to keep volunteers in bottled water and food as they worked hard to get the city functioning again.

 He kinda would like to go out and help himself – use the suit to help lift heavy loads and stuff. But right now his temper was too unpredictable to risk getting out among sad and upset people in what amounted to heavy machinery. Legally, male alphas were not allowed to even operate cars or motorcycles while in rut.

 He sighed and asked JARVIS to keep him posted on what was going on. Perhaps he should just get up and go work. He stretched and yawned before rolling over and getting to his feet. He tossed the dirty wash cloth towards the bathroom and wandered out of his suite and towards the elevator.


	4. Expansion on Alpha Senses

**Chapter 4**

 

Tony Stark both looked forward to and dreaded the idea of the Avengers moving in. He kind-of liked them all and it would be good not to be alone. Alphas - paranoid, uncompromising, blunt alphas longed to be surrounded by people – especially Omegas and women. It was safer for Tony to be alone but Tony was tired of being lonely.

He was just concerned with their ability to work together. Tony was pretty sure that Steve and Bruce hardly wore scents at all, at least he hadn’t smelled anything but their own sweat and such after the fight with Loki and the Chitari. (He should suggest that Loki go into music and get himself a band. Much better for generating a following than as a dictator after a violent invasion.)

That lack of added scents could be a problem when he went into Rut. They would smell like their own, tasty selves when he fell into his yearly bout of incredibly heightened libido. And, even though neither had been near heat, what little extra he had smelled from them... Well, he'd been pretty interested in them long before he met them so maybe he should consider himself fortunate that he liked how he smelled. It's just... Well, what would he do when this Rut struck? 

He'd just invited an Alpha-less troupe of delicious-smelling Omegas into his territory right before Rut. Yup - he was out of his mind. This was really, really stupid but also something he couldn't actually take back.

 What would the other Avengers think of him when he went into his rut? Would they despise him for being an Alpha? For being a risk to their bodily sanctity?

 Omegas did not go into Heat when they were grieving. Nearly the whole of New York City would have Grief and late, unpredictable Heats as a consequence. Members of Stark Industries Human Resources Department were probably already trying to make predictions for when people might start back into Heats again and need Heat-leave.

 Would they judge him for his Heat equivalent when Ruts were not something put off by grief the way Heats were? Tony had kind-of sometimes liked Agent. He _was_ sorry that Agent was dead. He might actively mistrust Romanoff and had little opinion on Barton, but he was sorry that their handler, whom they must have been close to was dead. Hell, most of SHIELD must be in Grief right now from the invasion on their helicarrier and would probably find their carefully made schedules thrown into disarray when people manage to put themselves back together.

 But Alphas did not work the way Omegas did and Ruts were not Heats. Across most of the animal kingdom, killing a female's offspring would usually allow her to get ready to breed again, seen clearly in species such as lions. In contrast, Omega's Grief helped prevent the killing of an Omega's offspring to get them fertile again as it prevented a Heat while the omega grieved and was something nearly everyone knew. Ruts were rather more mysterious to the general public. Alphas were rare enough that government funded schools and the health classes therein which taught about the reproductive systems of men, women, and omega men with only a few words spent on omega women as mostly like women but with Heats when they ovulated. Unless a student asked, the only mention that Alphas would get in a health class was a footnote in the textbook (or at least the class he’d had in high school) telling the reader to see another book about alphas.

 Of course, the school library didn’t have the book, nor did the public library, and by the time he’d gotten to college and had access to a much bigger library he’d never dared go searching information. His paranoia was too strong even then.

 Tony did eventually track down a lot more information on Alphas and studies on Alphas but he knew just how out of the way the information was.

Ruts were a time where an alpha male experienced a week or so of extremely heightened libido, usually once a year. The timing of the Rut could be influenced by temperature, availability of food, and exercise and for some years, Tony kept the offices and labs cold, his food intake as low as reasonably healthy, and whenever possible he ran. He ran hard on his beach in California or on treadmills in his New York residence. Over the years, his Rut had settled towards late spring and this year it was going to bite him like never before. 

Living alone, or with his best Beta Rhodey, he'd simply experienced a week where he jerked himself silly and ate whenever he could get his hands of his dick. Sometimes there had been times where he ate with one hand and jerked off with the other, much to Rhodey's disgust that time when Tony'd been caught jerking off in front of the sink as he chewed through a sandwich, dropping crumbs everywhere. Rut was a time of gluttony. 

This past year, Tony had actually had his first Rut with an Omega. Pepper had finally agreed to be his and the sex had been brilliant. Awe-inspiring even. 

They hadn't been together sexually long enough for their cycles to sync so Pepper hadn't gotten as much pleasure out of it through her hormones as he had but Tony was very good in the sack and didn't leave her wanting for anything that he could provide with hands, mouth, cock, and his very clever, very dirty mind. 

Tony was messed up. He was grieving himself, if not for the same reason as everyone else in New York City. 

Tony didn't know if Pepper would be here for his Rut this year, after he'd nearly broken her heart when he'd fallen out of the portal. He was pretty sure she'd completely broken up with him - no break up sex or anything.

Tony had messed up. He'd invited some of the most physically fit and appealing people into his territory right before his Rut while he was grieving. 

And while an Omega's Grief would postpone heats, an Alpha's Rut could be brought on by grief and loss.


End file.
